balance II

The natural question from yesterday would be why am I out of balance? The natural answer is that I am spending too much time at work. But why, always the why. The answer: I don't have confidence in other people.

A person starts working somewhere and various processes get passed to that person. In time, that person will pass those processes on to someone else. A great deal of what makes a successful company is the smooth and complete transfer of knowledge from one person to the next. That arguably makes up 90% of the knowledge it takes to operate on a day-to-day basis. Innovation is great, but operational excellence is much more fundamental.

I start working and learn various processes from others. In time, I am supposed to pass those processes on to other people. I have strong doubts about other people and their ability to competently do what are really very basic tasks. Consequently, either I do not pass the process on or I do pass it on but continually look over their shoulder to make sure they are doing it properly. Either way, I am still involving myself. Is it some subconscious desire to remain as needed as possible and thus make myself indispensable? I am fairly certain that it isn't. I have discussed related ideas before and the bottom line is that being indispensable, especially for me right now, is a terrible position to be in. Besides, the current state of the business does not lend itself to firing anyone except the most blatantly incompetent. By the way, I am not blatantly incompetent.

Let's revisit why being indispensable is a bad thing, specifically my situation. Locally, if I am the only person who knows some process then that would make my district reluctant to any sort of transfer. Additionally, I dislike the feeling of being the one people rely on. This is not because I am uncomfortable with responsibility, but mostly because I am uncomfortable with people who are not self-reliant. I want others to be independent enough such that they do not need me.

I enjoy teaching and mentoring and generally being a guide for people who are less experienced at whatever the particular task in front of us is. (In essence, I can picture myself, quite nicely in fact, working in some sort of teaching capacity for a large portion of my working life. That's not to say I want to teach in some way as a career, but merely that it is a viable and mostly positively viewed option.) As I reflect on work-specific examples, I am seeing that I do not have a problem letting go of a process. I have a problem letting go of a process to specific people. For example, I totally trust one particular person who is newer than me in a supervisory role in the field. I absolutely do not trust another person with the same role even though he has a similar amount of experience as the person I do trust. I want to trust that person and I have tried to let that person earn my confidence, but time and again my confidence seems to be misplaced.

Perhaps the entire matter of balance and time spent at work and moving on can be traced back to people. This isn't about me, it's about them. They're no good and I need to pick up the slack? Probably not. (Read: hopefully not because then there is no solution that I can implement.) Or perhaps I need to adjust my concept of the quality of work I find to be acceptable. In the end, the most likely scenario is that I need to give people more time. And after more time is given? Then I wait for someone to get fired by those with the authority to actually do so. That or someone will quit. Experience has shown that someone will always quit.